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Autopsy as Gold Standard in FDG-PET Studies in Dementia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2014

Pascali Durand-Martel ,
Dominic Tremblay ,
Catherine Brodeur  and
Nancy Paquet
Pascali Durand-Martel
Affiliation:
Neurology Service, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke
Dominic Tremblay
Affiliation:
Nuclear Medicine Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke
Catherine Brodeur
Affiliation:
Geriatrics Service, McGill University Health Centre, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Nancy Paquet*
Affiliation:
Nuclear Medicine Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke
*
3001 12e Avenue N, Sherbrooke, Quebec, J1H 5N4, Canada
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Abstract

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Positron emission tomography (PET) imaging with F18-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) is increasingly used as an adjunct to clinical evaluation in the diagnosis of dementia. Considering that most FDG-PET studies in dementia use clinical diagnosis as gold standard and that clinical diagnosis is approximately 80% sensitive or accurate, we aim to review the evidence-based data on the diagnostic accuracy of brain FDG-PET in dementia when cerebral autopsy is used as gold standard. We searched the PubMed and Medline databases for dementia-related articles that correlate histopathological diagnosis at autopsy with FDG-PET imaging and found 47 articles among which there were only 5 studies of 20 patients or more. We were able to conclude that sensitivity and specificity of FDG-PET for Alzheimer's disease are good, but more studies using histopathological diagnosis at autopsy as gold standard are needed in order to evaluate what FDG-PET truly adds to premortem diagnostic accuracy in dementia.

Type
Review Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences , Volume 37 , Issue 3 , May 2010 , pp. 336 - 342
Copyright
Copyright © The Canadian Journal of Neurological 2010

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